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In most countries 
on the continent

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There were princes,
they were absolute regimes,

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The degree of absolutism was 
relative to a particular setting,

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But If you take France as the most important
central, most populace country, 

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you had a very elaborate system of 
censorship, but in addition to that,

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you had a monopoly of production 
in the bookseller's guild in Paris,

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it had police powers

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and then the police itself had 
specialised inspectors of the book trade

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so you put all of that together 

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and the state was very powerful 
in its attempt to control the printed word.

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By the time you time you get 
to the age of the Enlightenment 

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there's a highly organised 
administration of the book trade,

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so in principle anything that appears in print 
has to pass the censorship 

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and be registered,

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to go through an elaborate process,

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and of course this didn't work

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that the directions set,

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the organisation set up 
by the state was so elaborate, 

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so baroque in its bureaucracy

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that in a sense it was 
counterproductive.

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 Censorship, you know,

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varies from regime to regime.

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We think we know 
what censorship is,

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but i would argue that it's a 
different thing under different systems,

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so the basic idea of censorship 
in 18th century france

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is the concept of privilege 
or private law,

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a publisher gets the right to publish 
a particular text 

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that is denied to others,

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so he has that privilege.

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that's different from censorship 
under stalin, say, or hitler

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 There is a monopoly of what's called 
the booksellers guild of paris.

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it has police power;

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its syndics and aguane are 
obliged to inspect

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all of the printing houses in paris

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and printers are officially limited 
to 36 printing shops.

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And so the guild is supposed to go 
around from shop to shop

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and find out what 
they're printing,

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make sure there are no illegal 
books being printed.

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No books that 
contravene privileges

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the equivalent of copyright in a sense etc.
So yes they have powers 

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and they also inspect every single book 
which is shipped into paris.

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the books are stopped at the wall 
which surrounds paris

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and any ship which is 
marked 'libri' books

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is sent to a special 
large hall

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where the  booksellers guild and inspector 
of police will inspect it.

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Essentially what you have

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is a centralised administration for 
controlling the book trade

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using censorship and 
also using the monopoly

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of the established publishers

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against that you've got 
publishing houses,

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print presses that 
surround france

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in what i call a 
'fertile crescent'

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dozens and dozens of them producing 
books which are smuggled

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across the french borders

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 and distributed everywhere in the kingdom 
by an underground system,

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so in effect you've got two systems 
at war with one another.

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And it's the system of production 
outside france

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that is crucial for the 
enlightenment,

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virtually all of the works that we associate 
with the french enlightenment

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are published in Amsterdam, 
in the Hague,

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in Brussels in Geneva, 
in Neuchatel, in Basel 

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these are the places where 
Rosseau, Voltaire 

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and company get 
themselves printed,

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but these printers also 
produce other things

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because they're in it not simply 
to spread enlightenment,

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many of them are sympathetic 
to the enlightenment

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they're in it to make money. So 
they will satisfy demand,

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whatever the demand might be...

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the pirates had agents in paris

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and everywhere else, who were sending 
them sheets of new books

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which they think will sell well,

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 the pirates are systematically 
doing market research

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in hundreds and thousands of letters, 
they are sounding the market,

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they want to know 
what demand is

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the reaction of publishers at the centre 
is of course extremely hostile,

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I've read a lot of their letters;

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they're full of expressions 
like buccaneer

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and private and people without 
shame or morality etc.

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in actual fact many of these pirates 
were good bourgeois,

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in Lausanne or, Geneva 
or, Amsterdam

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and they thought, that they were 
just 'doing business'.

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after all there was no 
international copyright law

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and they were satisfying demand. 
If the demand hapend to be in france 

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well, that's a problem 
for the french,

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 but not for the 
dutch or the swiss

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I must admit, 
I always hesitate

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to pronounce on 
world historical trends.

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But i've spend a lot 
of time in the archives

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and you can at least 
glimpse something,

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 that might look world 
historical from time to time,

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as you go through 
various bits of old paper.

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What is clear is that 
during the 18th century

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 that the printed word as a 
force is expanding everywhere

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and we can go into a 
lots of detailed studies

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to find out why an 
how that this happened

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The population is increasing, the 
educational institutions are spreading,

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literacy is going up and there is this 
new thing we call 'public opinion'.

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The phrase itself is first used in 
the middle of the 18th century,

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I think the phenomenon 
existed earlier,

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but for the last half 
of the 18th century

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there is a public that is 
fascinated with public affairs,

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now the mechanism 
for controlling the media

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if you want to use that expression 
notably the print media

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is simply not adequate to 
controlling this demand.

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So everywhere around france, 
even within france,

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there are entrepreneurs who take it 
upon themselves to satisfy this demand 

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and this can be in the form of clandestine manuscript newsletters,

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it can be in a form of fully printed 
books and there are many other forms

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the one that I find most 
interesting is songs.

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It turns out that everyone in the 
18th century, if you take paris,

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had a repertory of tunes in his 
or her had, as we do today.

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most of my tunes come 
from commercials actually

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People would improvise 

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new words to old tunes, 
everyday.

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And these would be sung 
in the streets of paris,

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sometimes by professionals, 
who had hurdy-gurdys

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and would simply belt out the last 
verse tune that everyone knew.

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And it could be about 
the kings mistress,

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 it could be about a minister 
who is abusing power,

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it could be on a whole variety 
of quite political subjects.

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This new verse is then picked up 
because it is a great mnemonic device

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and the song is been song throughout 
the streets of paris.

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I imagine the street of paris - it is just 
echoing everywhere with songs.

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So that is a good example of how 
in the absence of news media

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of proper newspaper, a new 
kind of medium developed,

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that actually does 
the job of newspapers

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 I've studied hundreds of these songs and I would say, they were sung newspapers.

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There's  no way that an 
absolutist political system

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can totally suppress the 
spread of information

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new media adapt themselves 
to these circumstances,

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and often they can become even more 
effective because of the repression.

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It's a fascinating process 
and it culminates frankly 

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right on the eve of the france 
revolution, so that i would argue,

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Not only did this new media system 
spread the enlightenment

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but, I won't use the word 
'prepared', the way for the revolution

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it indicted the old regim

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that this power, public opinion, 
became crucial

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in the collapse of 
the government 1787-1788.